


Epiphany

by Sondrox



Category: To the Moon Series (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Goodbyes, I wrote this for a contest, Imaginary Friends, Obviously I didn't won, Revelations, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sondrox/pseuds/Sondrox
Summary: Faye learns how to let go Colin in the only way she knows how. (Swap AU)





	Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Epifanía](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949697) by [Sondrox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sondrox/pseuds/Sondrox). 



Author’s note: If you know Spanish, please consider reading the spanish version. Thank you.

_I know. This is the bitter not the sweet, this is the take and not the keep, and I haven’t even reached the bottom of this ocean floor._

She screwed up, maybe too far this time.

Faye opened her door’s apartment in resignation and slammed it shut right as she entered. She had just returned from an audition to enter an orchestra, which she did not know how it went, as she fled the auditorium before it started.

She turned on the light and the first thing she found was a warning letter on the floor for her second overdue rent, this letter was the last one before the eviction. She left her cello next to her bedroom door almost dropping it to the floor and sat on the desk in front of her bed, resting her head on her hands while covering her face for a few seconds. She opened her eyes between her fingers and saw the notes taped to the wall.

Reminders, schedules, appointments, sheet music, and tips on how to play them. A small pile of notes that ended in a special one: Her audition’s date. Just from seeing it made her hit her forehead with her bare hand several times, she practiced for weeks, only to waste it away.

She picked up her phone to call the audition’s director hoping he would give her a second chance, just before she could do it Faye found a message from her mom:

_Good luck in your audition, honey, please call me to tell me about it. Xoxo._

Then she heard a knock on her door. When Faye opened she found her neighbor and friend from front, Colin, with arms crossed and with a not happy face at all.

“I hope you have a good reason to be back so early.”

“Wooould you believe me if I had one?” Faye tried to muster a confident smile, just to be melted by Colin’s judgment.

“We have to talk.”

“Can we not do this today?”

“No.” Colin said as he entered to Faye’s apartment likes it was his own house.

It didn’t take him long to get to the other end of the apartment, almost reaching the small balcony at the back. He scratched his chin and placed his hands on his waist as he took a sigh.

“Alright, tell me wha’ happened in there? From the start.”

Faye walked in circles through the room as she recapped the last few hours with her hands on the back of her neck, as if keeping it from falling off.

"Ok ... I was, I was tuning my cello, right before the audition, I started to practice the piece I were gonna play, I closed my eyes to concentrate and when I opened them the room was full of people. Like, you should have watch it, a little more and I’ve could have drowned.

“Don’t lose focus.”

“Then…literally everybody gathered around me, forming a freaking circle. And all I could hear were whispers, whispers everywhere, here and there, in my back, all around. Even one of them recorded me with his phone, then I…I just ran away.”

Afterwards, Faye didn’t want to continue and just went to rest in her bed and bury her head on the pillows, she didn’t need Colin to lecture, she just told him to be quiet for a while.

Then a small sound alerted Faye. She got up from the bed and stood on the edge of it, not knowing the source of the sound. Seconds later he heard it again near the balcony. She couldn't see well so she turned on a nearby lamp, she discovered the source of the sound, a cage with a bird inside.

"Damn it, I forgot again." Faye moved the bird where the sun hit it, opened the door, and a bird with a red body and an orange head came out. A Baltimore Oriole, if Faye remembered correctly. The girl turned around where the cage was at first and took out a bag of seeds and dried fruit from under the table and licked her lips before whistling. It was Willa's lunchtime.

“Fiu! Willa! Come here, my boy!” Faye offered her arm, Willa landed on it and with her hand Faye gave her several seeds. After she finished, Willa flitted around the apartment until Faye opened the balcony door for her bird to come out but Willa stayed inside. "Whatever you like." And closed the door again.

Sometimes she questioned whether taking Willa with herself from her parents' house was the best idea. Today she had forgotten for hours that Willa was there. The next time it could be...better that was for another day. But the birds were supposed to live in freedom, right?

Right?

Her mind distracted her with another sound, when she turned around she realized it was Colin's voice.

"Come on, let’s go."

"Wait, what do you mean? Where do we go to start with? " Asked Faye

“We're going to get you out of this. We have to talk, but we can’t here. "

"Why? What's wrong with here? "

Colin just knocked on the wall, Faye imitated her without understanding well and pressed her ear to the wall.

**Knock Knock**

"Knock again and I’ll knock that door down!" The neighbor from the other apartment yelled followed by a way bigger hit to the wall.

Faye compelled with Colin and right before she left, she turned back to Willa and doubt began to hover in her mind. After thinking quickly, she opened both her cage and the balcony door. Then she hurried to catch up with Colin, not without taking one last look at Willa.

Before she knew it Faye was walking up a greenish ravine tinted with flora with Colin in front of her. The buildings, the urban noise and everything that made up the city was left as a small point in a painting, all washed out by the orange of the sunset that was just beginning. Only Faye and her increasingly heavy breathing remained, while Colin was as if nothing. They reached the precipice of the ravine in which there was a large tree in which they sat beneath.

"This should do it," Colin said sitting under the shade of the tree. "Now, you and I have a pending talk."

"About what? Ugh,” Faye asked as she flopped onto the log.

"I don’t even know where start." It took a while to respond.

Faye stared up at the sky through the leaves and the tiny beams of light they let through. “This is ALREADY difficult. Maybe if I call Mom–! Damn it, I forgot, what am I gonna tell her? " She rubbed her eyes as she blew out a deep breath.

"Yes, Faye," Colin caught her attention. "What will you tell?"

"Please don't start."

"No, seriously. What will you tell? Surprise me. "

"Well, what the hell is wrong with you all of a sudden?"

"Faye I'm serious."

“And I am more serious. You should support me, but I don't know what you want me to do.

"Well, to begin with," he said as he stood. “Go home and call the audition director, tell her to give you another chance. You have the number that that guy you met gave you. "

"But…I-I don't know if I should...I’m sure they won’t give me another chance."

“For the love of – why am I not surprised? That's your real problem, you don't try where it really matters. "

"Excuse me?"

"What you just heard."

"I DON’T try?" Are you deaf or something? Did you forget all the nights I pulled an all-nighter? "

"Oh yeah? And what good did it do you?

In that instant everything Faye could have said plunged into her throat as if she had swallowed her vomit, leaving a burning inside her.

"I can't–! I can't believe you!"

"I CAN'T believe you. You've only been away from your parents' house for almost a year and you can't handle something so simple."

"I can. I just need time."

"You do not have time! You do not understand!? Your parents said you should prove that you can live on your own and you won't be able to go on like this for long. "

"Shut up, please!? Just. Shut up. No… I can handle this I just–“

"You are right where you started, alone and stuc–“

"COLIN!" She exclaimed, now it was Faye who stood from the tree. Noticing her abrupt reaction, she proceeded to try to calm herself. "You..." She exhaled and inhaled again. "You know I hate that word. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I don't give a damn what happens to me, what worries me is that it will happen to you."

"What will happen to me? Don't you know that it's too late for you to help me!? I just… I just think I'll go back to my parents. " She said crestfallen for a second, quickly removed that expression, and turned back to Colin. "So YOU can leave me alone once and for all."

"I think it is a great idea. I don't know what I've been doing with you all this time, when I could very well have a life of my own. " Lied. "You finally say something smart." Colin continued. "A little more and I would think you were playing the idiot or–"

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” She yelled and shoved Colin hard.

"I DO NOT NEED YOU!" She pushed him again. They were both approaching the cliff.

"I DO NOT NEED ANYONE!" Another push. Stones fell into the void on their way to the edge.

"THE ONLY THING I NEED IS–"

The setting sun blinded Faye's eyes for several seconds. When they cleared, she found herself sitting under the tree as she looked out over the city. Colin was nowhere to be seen.

The sky was beginning to darken, and soon the city’s lights came out and blazed like lighthouses.

She looked down at his hands that were holding a red book and a pencil, then he read the last thing that was written.

" _Myself_." Faye whispered. She blinked a few times before processing those words. She concentrated and continued her writing.

“Myself. She said as the light of the sunset sun hit Colin and vanished him away in a fleeting and blinding light. For Faye to never see him again. " She finished and took a deep breath after resting her head on the log.

She went back a couple of pages and checked the entry for that day.

Not assimilating it as a painful truth, but a backward and due revelation.

When she finished, she saw her watch, she knew he had to go back, on her way downhill, her memories with Colin began to sink into the corners of her mind. Unsure of when they would see sunlight again, or whether they would. One after another. Every memory. Forgotten.

When she started playing cello with Colin. Nobody really taught her.

When she played in her school band and saw Colin between the audience and she played for him.

Strangers. Her parents never arrived on time. They apologized dozens of times to her that night.

The gifts Colin gave her on her birthday. She herself hid them and then sought them out.

The times she played hide and seek with Colin in the schoolyard, and he always won. The other children never looked for her when she was hiding.

Faye just squeezed her red book as hard as she could, marking her grip on the book cover.

Did she go to that ravine alone or with someone? It didn't matter, it wasn't Faye's business, not anymore.

Meanwhile, in the distance two people in white coats vanished into thin air.

She arrived at her apartment at night, expecting a cold and welcoming silence. Instead the first thing she heard was the chatter of her bird that was still inside the apartment waiting for her.

"Willa. I see you didn't…left…” Faye said as she watched her bird fly from side to side, until her gaze fell on the open balcony door. And it was there that her head had a little click. "Hell, of course it's cold here." And she rushed to close the door.

Later she sat down at her desk, dropping her body on the chair while rubbing her hands for several minutes. After feeding Willa she saw her phone on her desk like if she had never seen one and picked up, then she looked through her mobile towards the notes on her desk in search of the number of the director that that boy, Santiago, gave her from the auditorium she met. Faye hated every moment she looked for it.

She was scared, but she was also tired of being scared… she was between doing this or having nothing. She realized that this was not about being ready, but about doing what was necessary when it was necessary.

"If I'm going to do it, I'm going until the end."

She dialed the number, while listening to the phone's PIP ringing intermittently, she looked at her door.

Although closed, she could see the door to Colin's apartment. As if expecting him to leave the apartment again. But her little bubble inside her head exploded when she heard two children screaming out of the apartment on their way out, she just sat there without moving or making a sound until the children moved so far away that she could no longer hear them.

"Of course." She released into the air. "Silly me." Whoever they were, they weren't him. Nobody was him. No longer.

"Hello?" Faye heard on the phone.

"Yes, hello, Mr. Davis. I'm Faye Freebird. I was talking to you about the audition today."

"Freebird, you say? I looked forward to meet you today. I heard exceptional things about you."

"I-really? I mean, I was hoping I could explain my absence and I was hoping that he could give me a second chance ..."

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> If you like it please consider leaving a comment, it would make my day. See you next time!


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